"North to the Chesapeake"

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“North to the Chesapeake”

We left Savannah after three days living alongside the very busy Riverwalk. The waterway north of here is some of the thinnest water between Norfolk and Florida. The Army Corp of Engineers has had to ignore the shoaling in this area due to lack of funds. There were several places where the channel has shoaled to less than 4’ during low tide. The good news is that this part of the coast has an average mean tide of more than 8’. We cautiously motored north and headed for Hilton Head Island. The weather forecast called for several days of high winds, thunderstorms and possible tornado warnings, so we opted for a slip at the Broad Creek Marina. This nice facility is located in the middle of Hilton Head Island. We rented a car and toured the Island from one end to the other. We also had a chance to catch up with old friends Bill & Nan Mc Daniel. They too have recently retired and are building their “dream home” in Colletin River Plantation. We were able to tour their nearly finished home and see the remarkable golf course community where they will be living.

Once the weather cleared we moved along with our next stop being the beautiful southern town of Beaufort, SC. We anchored off of the town park and dinghied in to walk around this amazing old town and admire the colonial architecture.

Next we pushed on to Charleston, SC after an overnight in a small creek just off the ICW. We took a slip in Charleston because Julie & Dan were driving over to meet us for the weekend. Our timing was great because this was the annual Charleston Maritime festival weekend with all sorts of celebrations going on downtown and pirates everywhere you looked. We must have got the last available slip at the big City Marina because we were tied up on the very end of the “Mega Dock”. Most of the other vessels on this dock were in excess of 150’ in length. There were crewed yachts both power and sail with home ports from the Marshall Islands to England. We really felt like people must have thought we were a dinghy for one of these monsters.

We had a good visit and enjoyed a dinner at “82 Queen” one of our all time favorite Charleston places. There was plenty of time for long walks around the Charleston Battery and we had a chance to go out to or old neighborhood in Mount Pleasant. We had a nice visit and were served a delicious lunch by Ron & Thelma Thompson (Dan’s Uncle & Aunt). Coincidentally, they live in our old neighborhood of Hidden Lakes, Mount Pleasant, SC. The next day Tina & Kevin Brunson stopped by the Marina to visit. We all have Baltimore roots and our paths continue to cross.

From Charleston we once again motored north to Little River, SC which is just north of Myrtle Beach. As we moved through this area we once again heard dire warnings of possible winds to 60 mph, strong thunderstorms and possible tornados. We found shelter in a much protected marina called Coquina Harbor. The storms moved over shortly after docking but luckily the winds were not as strong as predicted. The next day we decided to go offshore and sail outside to Southport. We started out with light southerly winds of 5-10 mph but by the time we approached the inlet at the Cape Fear River, the winds had built to 15-20 knots and we were surfing along at speeds between 8-10 knots. We elected to sail on up the Cape Fear towards Wilmington. We were able to keep going and to anchor in Banks Channel between Wrightsville Beach and Harbor Island. This truly was like being back home again. We lived in Wilmington and sailed out of Wrightsville Beach from 1984-1996. We were ready to stay in one place for a few days so this provided us with an opportunity to see some of our old friends from this area. We toured the expanded Airlie Gardens with Bruce & Marjorie Cartier, had dinner with Calvin & Shannon Wells at their beach house, had dinner with Jack & Laura Wilhelm and Bill & Beth Brampton one evening and enjoyed visits with Jerry Pope and Russell Heiland out on the anchorage. We still had time to take beach walks every morning and to dinghy over to the new stores near the waterway bridge.

After five days we saw a perfect weather window to head north, so we headed outside again and had a delightful sail to Beaufort, NC. This was a 72 mile trip along the coast with southwest winds at 10-15 knots and a 3’ following sea. We stayed at the town docks in Beaufort (Bo-fort) and had time to re-visit this little town that we had sailed to many times when we lived in NC.

From here we were forced to take the ICW or venture out and around Cape Hatteras, the graveyard of the North Atlantic. I have been around the Cape on several occasions, all successfully, but decided that we had plenty of time and we would not tempt fate but stick to the inside route. Also, I had never done the historic “Dismal Swamp Canal” and wanted to scratch that one off the list of places to see in this lifetime.

Our first night was spent in Broad creek after motor sailing up from Beaufort. There were only three us anchored in this peaceful little place and all three were catamarans. Besides us were a Manta 42 and a PDQ 36. We caught up with the Manta 42 (Exodus) the next afternoon in Campbell Creek as we were both seeking a place to hide from the heavy rain that was threatening. Indeed we anchored just 10 minutes before the skies opened and the rain poured down for the next 12 hours. We were anchored in 6’ of water around a bend in the creek that afforded us protection from the gusty wind, so we settled in for the rest of the day and the night. Nancy made some 13 Bean soup from a package kit we had on board since the Bahamas. It really warmed the boat and hit the spot when we had it with some homemade bread for our evening meal.

The next morning the skies cleared and we continued north past Belhaven and entered the long Alligator-Pungo Canal. This is a 20 mile manmade land cut that would be pretty boring except for the wildlife and the snags and stumps that just about stick above the water on both sides of the centerline channel. If you are not careful it is easy to drift off to one side and tear up a prop. Just as we were entering the canal below the Wilkerson Bridge we spotted some sort of black animal swimming across the channel right in front of us. I had to drop the throttle back to idle to keep from running over what I thought was a very large dog. NO this was no dog it was about a 150 lb black bear. We watched as it hit the bank and scampered away into the wooded shoreline. We anchored this night in a small cove off the Alligator River just short of the Albemarle Sound.

The next day we were able to sail with a following breeze across Albemarle Sound and up the River to Elizabeth City. I have read magazine articles for years about the friendly reception that cruisers are afforded in this quaint little town. Also, I wanted to see the remote Dismal Swamp Canal that begins just north of Elizabeth City. We were part of a group of about 12 cruisers that were staging for the trip through the canal. The local folks put on a fine meet & greet cocktail hour with snacks and punch provided. Unfortunately, the last of the famous “Rose Buddies” have passed on and they no longer provide long stemmed roses to the ladies on each boat.

The Dismal Swamp and the Pasquotank River that preceded it were truly a unique boating experience. The best way I can think of to describe it would be to compare the trip to a long hike through a forest. One cannot imagine what a narrow channel it is, that winds through a tidal forest of Gum and cedar trees. The day we made this trip the winds were 25-35 with higher gusts following a very strong cold front. We were completely protected with virtually no waves or chop. Occasionally a gust would whistle through the trees but our progress was not impeded at all. It took us 4 hours to traverse the Pasquotank River before we entered the locks at the south end of the canal. We shared the canal with 2 other cats, a PDQ36 and a Lagoon 38. As the locked was filled, we rose 9’ to reach the level inside the Dismal Swamp canal. This year the canal was extraordinarily low due to the lack of rain in the South East. The Army Corp of Engineers were limiting passage to vessels drawing 6’ or less. This meant traffic was very light and most of the boats we saw were either small monos, cats and an occasional trawler. Once again we saw lots of wildlife including turtles and bald eagles. Double-Wide made great time, due to a strong tail wind, which meant we reached the Deep Creek locks 1:45 minutes before the next scheduled opening. There was a small dock to tie up to and we took that opportunity to go to a Food Lion supermarket which was only 2 blocks from the canal. Once we locked down it was a short motor to reach the Elizabeth River and the lower reaches of Norfolk harbor. There are a series of bridges that all must open to allow sailboats to pass. But the view of the naval shipyard and all of the commercial traffic keep one occupied so the trip is anything but boring. After this long day we decided to tie up at a marina for the night so we called and got one at the Tidewater Marina in Portsmouth, just across the river from downtown Norfolk and Waterside Piers. They had a floating pool in the middle of the slips which was really welcome after a long hot day of motoring. Nancy’s brother-in-law, John was scheduled to arrive the next morning from Baltimore to help us make the trip up the bay.

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Photos

Big Ketch
This guy tied up in front of us. At 146' it made us look tiny.

Pungo Canal
Notice the snags near the channel edge.

Alligator River Sunset
A Great Anchorage

Beaufort NC Docks
Lot's of Cruisers Gather Here

Beaufort SC House
This was only one of many houses like this that line the waterfront.

Beth & John
John was on his way to Marine flight school.